By Sandeep Juneja
Chandigarh, December 09, 2008, Science Express a sparkling white train enters Chandigarh Railway Station. This exhibition train features over 300 large-format visual images, 150 video clips and multimedia exhibits. The train consists of 13 boggies, 2 of which are occupied by the power system supply to the fully Air-conditioned exhibition. Rest 11 boggies are fully decorated with the exhibition equipments and images.
All the 11 boggies have different themes like Big Bang Theory, Nano Cosmos, Building Blocks of Life, From Gene to Organism, Architecture of the Mind, The World of Senses, Technologies of the Future, From Data to Knowledge, Global Challenges, Spaceship Earth, Our Home is the Cosmos, The Universe and Plantes, India's Achievements in Science, Science Hands-on Lab
This unique science exhibition will cover 17000 kms in six months with halt at 51 railway stations across India. In its current phase started on 30th November 2008, it's first destination was Udhampur where it stayed for two days, then came to Kapurthala (RCF) on 05th December and stayed there till 07th December. Reaching Chandigarh on 08th of December it will stay at Chandigarh Railway station till 12th December and will move ahead to its last destination of this phase Bhathinda on 13th December.
Vikram A Sarabhai Community Centre (VASCSC), Ahmedabad has the responsibility to handle and manage the coordination of 'Sciencexpress' in conjunction with Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. VASCSC has its team member on board to solve queries of the visitors. Our team was being hosted by Mr. Dilip Mirzapure, Project Coordinator 'Sciencexpress'. He was with us to explain us things in a better way. He told us "the main purpose of the train is to educate the school kids and some science people out here in the city. This train is devoted to the people and its to quench the thirst of some people who know science".
In one of the boggies, its shown the origin of life and its way of generation. The other shows the life possibilities on Mars. The third boggy shows the Nuclear Reactor program recently held at Bern, Switzerland. There are lively images of plantes, images of soil on planets, live volcanoes, Richter Scale metering machine, real embryo of a mouse, pieces of astroids, scientific theories, and some interesting facts. So overall, the science train is a success in bringing knowledge to you. One must be on board to gain interesting knowledgable facts and figures. Such trains should keep coming to the city.
